What the #$*! Do We Know?! is already a phenomenon in the world of Spiritual Cinema. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to rent the newly released DVD.

   Filmed in a fascinating and utterly awe-inspiring style of combining documentary-like interviews, stylistic and exciting animation, and a dramatic storyline featuring Marlee Matlin, the movie is an innovative masterwork of spirituality. With strategic marketing, What the Bleep... has the potential to be recognized as nothing less than a significant cultural milestone.

Filmmakers William Arntz, Mark Vicente and Betsy Chasse deserve Nobel Prizes just for having the courage to attempt such a daredevil, high wire act. They have taken three years to wrestle this bracing blend of animation, documentary and live-action footage into a coherent and entertaining storyline. The audience is hooked from the very first images, which are beautifully photographed by Co-Director/Producer and Cinematographer Mark Vicente. The journey then plunges us into the ultimate questions of Spiritual Entertainment – who are we, and why are we here?

   We meet several fascinating and eloquent scientists, authors, innovators and spiritual seekers who discuss, with intricate cohesion, the basic secrets of our existence. Together, they make an inescapable and breathtaking case for the bedrock of all metaphysical teaching: each individual creates his or her own reality. There is no objective experience of the world around us. We create all of it from our thoughts, feelings and intentions. This is the first film in my memory to illuminate that issue in such a frank, no-holds-barred fashion, and I was thrilled and amazed to see these discussions up on a big screen for the world to see.

   Interspersed with these fascinating discussions and insights is a poignant and deeply moving dramatic story featuring Marlee Matlin as a Portland-based photographer who observes and experiences many of the issues presented by the personalities in the documentary aspects of the film. For instance, she experiences multiple versions of herself in different life situations where one little decision here and there can reshape an entire lifetime. It's a wonderful way to demonstrate how deeply our own choices impact our lives. Her story is also one of heartbreaking honesty and vulnerability as she faces her own inner demons of feeling deeply ashamed of herself. In illustrating the debilitating effects of a negative self-image, Matlin's performance is so vulnerable that it seems more of a purging of the depths of a soul than a mere role in a movie. She also interacts with an extraordinary young actor (Robert Bailey, Jr.) on a basketball court (a great metaphor for the "game" of life). He challenges her with the penetrating question of how deeply she wants to look at both her own existence and also the depth of the mystery of everyday life. "How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?" he asks her. For me, the Matlin story is the emotional center of the film.

   State-of-the-art animation is blended with the documentary and Matlin story to illustrate the very inner workings of our cellular structure as it responds to stimuli from the outside worl

   What the Bleep... is nothing less than a filmic adventure into the very nature of human existence and, as such, it has the potential of bringing these deeply spiritual questions into mainstream media and dialogue. Quibbles? Only a couple. As humans, we actually do have the capacity to know more about the illusion of life than we ever have before, and a title that minimizes that aspect of our self-awareness detracts from, rather than enhances, the message of the film. I also found some of the highly technical and detailed discussions of phenomena such as "neuropeptides" to be somewhat obscure. There is also a wedding scene that I experienced as being a bit too broadly farcical and out of tune with the rest of the film. These last two comments, however, are trivial matters in comparison to the brilliance of the majority of the film.

   What the Bleep... is now available on DVD. I strongly recommend that you see it as soon and as often as you can. Alert your friends to it as well. Like Mel Gibson did with The Passion, Financier and Co-Director/Producer William Arntz has personally financed the courage of his convictions (here with a spiritual rather than religious theme), and he deserves to be rewarded for his vision and bravery, as do all those involved with the film. For more information, please check out www.whatthebleep.com.

Movie Mystic Chakra Rating for What the Bleep...
CHAKRA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
RATING 4 3 3 4 3 3 3

For an explanation of The Chakra Rating System, please visit www.spiritualcinemacircle.com.

Stephen Simon has produced such films as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come, has just produced and directed Indigo, and wrote The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives. He also co-founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle (www.spiritualcinemacircle.com), the world's first and only Home DVD delivery service that exclusively distributes Spiritual Cinema. Stephen welcomes your comments by e-mail: Stephen @spiritualcinemacircle.com.